New Stratovarius Album Tracklisting Revealed

Stratovarius will release their new studio album in late August or early September. The Album is called simply Stratovarius (in other words you can forget about Popkiller) and it has the following tracks:

01. Maniac Dance 02. Fight 03. Just Carry On 04. Back To Madness 05. Gypsy In Me 06. Götterdämmerung (Zenith Of Power) 07. The Land Of Ice And Snow 08. Leave The Tribe 09. United

The album will surely be a surprise for Stratovarius fans. For example, you won't hear any double bass songs, for the Album is mainly in 4/4 and hte song are thoroughly produced mid-paced heavy rock songs. Especially the first part of the album is very "un-Stratovarius" (in proportion to previous albums) and some fans' faces may be worth seeing, when they hear the Atari-intro to the album single Maniac Dance.

A video has already been filmed of the forthcoming single, which was directed by Stratovarius guitarist Timo Tolkki's old schoolmate and the director of Celine Dion's, Eminem's and Nightwish's music videos, Antti Jokinen. Maniac Dance's lyrics leave little to be guessed, they tell about the twister gone around Timo Tolkki during the last few years

In the second part of the Stratovarius-disc the band moves to more familiar sounds and for example the song The Land Of Ice And Snow is a clear sequel to Forever. As the title suggests, The Land Of Ice And Snow is a salute to Finland and Finns. And a known alcohol drink is also mentioned in the song!

The way the album is constructed is that the first part is more unexpected material and the second part is more familiar Stratovarius, Tolkki tells.

At the end of the record you will hear some epic atmosphere and feelings similar to previous albums. At times they resemble Iron Maiden at its bombastic times, at times they resemble a sinfonic movie score. The album has also many surprising occasional elements, for example the babbling of Jörg's children, swedish opera singer and the speech of the wrestler Starbuck.

The progressive elements from the last two Strato-albums, are more or less history, for band's new songs are relatively simple flavoured with catchy choruses. Tolkki has also managed to write some extremely good and tight riffs. His guitar solos are stylized. He lets his fast fingers caress the guitar neck a few times, but you won't find any filling shredding on this album.

-The songs are a few years old. And I didn't plan the album to be like this. The songs wrote themselves. I just compose and later see what I have come up with... All music on the album is done by me. but Jens (Johansson, Keys) and Timo (Kotipelto, singer) have written some lyrics, Tolkki says and continues.

-Every artist praise their new album, but I just really like this album. And of course I'm very happy that we managed to make this in the first place!

Stratovarius members will tour Europe and other continents in July doing interviews. A long World tour will start in September....And yes, the stir created Hitler-song is now called Götterdämmerung (Zenith Of Power). And you can hear Mr. Adolf speaking after all, if you listen very closely....